Epic Race

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A stock plot: the characters have to proceed from a starting line to a finishing line under some set of rules over the course of an extended period of time - often several days. This could be by car, by horse, by foot, or by any means necessary. Expect badasses of whatevertypesareappropriate.

This may involve Wacky Racing or it may not: the distinguishing characteristic of an Epic Race is the extreme length (generally 12 hours or more), not its idiosyncratic nature. An Epic Race is so long that the challenge of merely going that distance in the time adds interest, irrespective of anything else.

Future GPX Cyber Formula has two grandprix races established as the cross country events (Peruvian and Japanese GP). One video game adaptation features a spin-off event called "Extreme Speed" which is a massive on-road cross country race.

Death Race, an In Name Only remake of Death Race 2000. In this case, it's a NASCAR-style track race where part of the goal is to kill the other racers. Death Race 3 changes the race to a Baja 1000-inspired desert rally.

Smokey and the Bandit has Burt Reynolds as a bootlegger who attempts to deliver a tractor trailer full of beer to a millionaire in a limited amount of time. Along the way, he has to match wits with an overenthusiastic sheriff.

The Great Race, inspired by the 1908 New York to Paris race, has the protagonist and his arch rival competing in custom cars.

A few inspired by the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash:

Cannonball, the first of the films to come out, starring David Carradine. This is also the only film inspired by the Cannonball not billed as a comedy.

The Cannonball Run was more directly based on the Cannonball, being written by the race's actual organizer. A sequel, Cannonball Run II, followed a few years later with Speed Zone, a semi-official sequel, coming a few years after that.

Midnight Madness features five teams of college students taking part in am all-night puzzle hunt in Los Angeles.

Drive depicted a cross-country road race with some rather shady organizers. Unfortunately, only six episodes were produced and the entrants only got as far as Cleveland (starting from Florida).

Arguably, the various Top Gear Specials, although (except for the Polar Special) "get there first" was not the challenge. That said, more traditional Epic Races have appeared on the show: the economy race from Basel, Switzerland to the Blackpool Illuminations took 17 hours; and the car vs. public transport race from Heathrow to Oslo took still longer.

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Video Games

The endurance races from the Gran Turismo series which have been getting longer as the series progresses. The fourth and fifth games even have races lasting a full twenty-four hours.

Need for Speed: The Run has the protagonist competing in a race across the country to settle a debt with the mob.

Sega's Rad Mobile is the first-person Outrun/Rad Racers inspired game that invoke racing across multiple locations from western to eastern United States of America.

The Crew has a number of Faction Missions involving these. The longest of these, "Frontier Tour", lasts between three and four hours. Hopefully, your controller is fully charged.

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Real Life

The sport of endurance riding, which involves trekking great distances on horseback. In older times, these races could be cross-country. Nowadays, most national events are between 50 and 100 miles, which can be completed in about 12 hours by the winners. The rides are divided into different legs, with health checks for the horses and riders before they're cleared to continue the competition.

Footraces

Literature

Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman — The Long Walk. It's a foot race run by 100 teenage boys, the so-called "walkers", with the following rules: if you drop below 4 miles an hour, you get a warning. Receiving 3 warnings in quick succession gets you killed. And as a final touch, it has no finish — it lasts until there's only one surviving walker. It's written by Stephen King — were you expecting a happy ending?

Tabletop Games

On the future Mars of Transhuman Space: In the Well, there's the Olympus Mons biathalon. You start by climbing the 15km-tall cliffs that make up the edge of the Olympus volcano — with a bicycle on your back — then you bike 300km to the caldera at the center.

In the Suske en Wiske comic "Het Sprekende Testament" (The Speaking Testament), the heroes of the series race in a modified train that drives on (and off) the road.

Fan Works

Earth and Sky: Twilight Sparkle ends up testing her experimental flying harness against the Flim-Flam Brothers (AKA Professor Destiny and Doctor Insanity) and their rocket-powered flying rig in the Grand Pegathalon, an epic flying race that goes all around Equestria's borders. As the first non-pegasus entrants in the Pegathalon, they end up opening the gates for flying species from across Equestria and beyond (including griffins, a qilin, and even a winged buffalo) to compete.

Ian Watson's story "The Great Atlantic Swimming Race" (swimming past the whole Atlantic Ocean) has a satirical bent.

The Race by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott involves a cross-country airplane race in 1909. The series' main character, Isaac Bell, is assigned to protect the favorite to win from her estranged husband. However, there is more to this than meets the eye.

The 1925 serum run to Nome, also known as the "Great Race of Mercy," was not a race against other competitors, but a race against nature itself — twenty mushers and over a hundred and fifty dogs undertook a 674-mile journey in blizzard conditions to save Nome, Alaska from a diphtheria epidemic after aircraft proved unusable. The serum arrived in five and a half days, a feat that has never been duplicated. The Iditarod, mentioned above, is in part a commemoration of this last great hurrah and Moment of Awesome of dog-sledding.

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